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Nick Piombino’s collections include Theoretical Objects (1999) and The Boundary of Blur (1993), both released by Roof Books. Recent work appears in The Poetry Project Newsletter, Chain (#9, dialogue with Barrett Watten), L’ Bourgoizine, Score, Poets Against The War and Muse-Apprentice-Guild. Visit his home page at the Electronic Poetry Center or his blog here.
Drew’s Atlantic Sky
(after “Black Atlantic Sky” by Drew Gardner)*
With a circle
you are inside
or outside
I’ll take a more
meandering tone
to speak to you in
and perhaps the killings
will stop
The principle of complementary
particularities will wither
if it does not encompass
a surface
and a strident grade
of similarities
Ghosts are humble
Doorways submit
to a purpose
they don’t understand
a grain runs under them
in the darkest ocean sky
a formula deserts the stage
now I remember
So that’s it
endings are created by space
an ending embodies an answer also
(that’s heavy
take your time)
A line of poetry is formed of echoes
without the answers I don’t realize
that the truth has the sound
of a different voice
here lines are dropped
like incandescent extrusions
of verbal sparkle
I heard several strands
at the same time
and understood
the harmony
consists of
response
It‘s like a refrain
that can be read just as
beautifully in its entirety
backwards
why shouldn’t the
refrain be part of the
solo too
this is going
back and forth
but the whole duet
is contained in the poetic
ground
Although I decided not to
write this
over and below your lines
I pictured this being seen
that way
I like the depthless sounding
in your Atlantic sky
it makes me want to
imagine living
under it
its sunsets repeat themselves
in the entwining
rings of the tree
(the tree the three)
and are yet unfortunate
Harborings are travels
each image has a separate voice
a kind of thumbprint
I see them on a piece of glass
cracked devices
Sure I gave it my own spin
the indifferent turn of phrase
torn of a planet
a half turn
to day or night
If what is important
goes unremarked
we are rendered impotent
if feelings are considered
imprecise they are still
complete
what occurs is as much interpreted
as it is articulated
in the midst of distractions
he saw the entire schematic blueprint
of its conception
* “Black Atlantic Sky” by Drew Gardner was published in Sugar Pill (Krupskaya, 2002), and originally by subpress as a broadside in 2000. When the author told Drew Gardner of this work which was written in response to his poem he said he meant for his poem to be responded to this way.